~ For human rights and against all kinds of ditnac

Category Archives: Layers of reality

Many people claim, often jokingly, that there are only two kinds of people in the world. Which these two kinds of people would be varies between different discussions as well as between different jokes. The truth is that each human being belong to many different categories, in many different categorizations.

Imagine this guy named Bob. He has an office job and has playing chess as one of his greatest hobbies. Sexually, he’s mostly into BDSM and mostly attracted to women, although he does have some sexual interest in vanilla sex and men as well. Physically, he happens to need a wheelchair because of a problem with his legs. He also happens to be white.

A person does not have a skin-color, a gender or a sexual orientation. Instead, each person has a skin-color, a gender and a sexual orientation. As well as many other traits.

When a person or society does categorism… treats you in a certain way, based on their ideas about categories… when they discriminate you or display prejudice or bigotry… it is typically based on several of these categorizations rather than just one. Interaction between categorizations is known as Intersectionality.

The concept of intersectionality (not the word itself, but the modern concept associated with the word) comes from Kimberlé Crenshaw, who in an essay (published 1989) argued that feminism and anti-racism both tend to exclude black women: Feminism by focusing on women (who are assumed to be white), anti-racism by focusing on people of color (who are assumed to be male). In other words, white people and men are what I call the zero-category: The category which is perceived as so normal that people are simply assumed to belong to it.

It is easy to make up a dichotomy between two categories, where one is constructed as privileged and the other is constructed as underprivileged or oppressed. To make such a distinction can often be a useful analytical tool to help identifying when people are getting mistreated in society. It is a privilege to be the social norm, the zero-category. As a person in a privileged category, your life may still be hard… but at least you are considered normal, as long as you conform to the right stereotypes about your assigned category.

However, one implication of intersectionality is that there is no such thing as a normal person:

1.) Each person can be categorized in many different ways.

2.) While a person is likely to belong to the zero-category of most such categorization, they will still belong to the outsider category of some categorizations.

3.) If there would actually be a person who is ”normal” in EVERY categorization, then this in itself is actually extreme rather than normal.

Now consider another fact: Categorizations are social constructs that we human beings do. The categorizations do not have any existence of its own. While a categorization may be invalid, bad, okay, good or better at describing whatever thing we are talking about, it can never be ultimately accurate in itself.

We draw a line somewhere, because our minds need lines to be drawn. The line itself does not exist, except in our minds. Reality is full of sliding scales, not dichotomies.

When people are divided into two groups, there will always always be people who do not fit into such black and white thinking. People are too complex to be reduced to simple dichotomies.

When people get stuck between categories, they suffer from midclusion. This is to be between inclusion and exclusion, but not necessarily a stable point between them: A person who suffer from midclusion may be fully accepted in both groups at one particular time, and fully excluded from both groups at another.

Because of intersectionality and midclusion, the idea that each person is either privileged or oppressed would be wrong even if it were true that a category is some sort of monolithic universal structure. Which it isn’t.

While trying to make people understand that there is a difference between individuals and social structures, it is too easy to talk about ”individual level” and ”structural level” as if they were on the same scale. However, they are actually different kinds of levels.

Instead, we need to treat individuals, groups and systemic patterns in society as one sliding scale from micro level to macro level. Different kinds of social structures – discursive, normative, social inertia and so on – is a separate system which intersects the first. Sample levels versus structural levels. Actual laws and similar formal rules should probably count as a third separate set in its own right.

So. Bob is sexually attracted to both men and women. This is simply a fact of life for him, not any identity. The fact that he have had boyfriends in the past is enough to make homophobes hate him, threaten him and discriminate against him.

Yet, the fact that he is mostly attracted to women makes it easy to dismiss him as not sufficently gay to count. Some people argue that he should be labeled as straight, and that straight people should be banned from Pride.

This particular form of midclusion is far from unique. It happens to many people who are attracted to both men and women. Especially if they are more attracted to one gender than the other and doesn’t overcompensate by going out of their way to publicly build an identity as bisexual or pansexual – and even if they do, people may still accuse them of being ”fake”. Because after all, ”there are only two kinds of people in the world”. In this case, meaning that everyone is either heterosexual or homosexual whether they like it or not.

This version of heteronormativity also includes these two absurd assumptions:
1. That identity and practice has to be the same thing. Bob is required to identify as bisexual because he have had sex with men, AND is required to have a sufficient (yet unspecified) amount of sexual encounters with men to ”qualify” for “not being straight”.
2. That certain practices are always identity while other certain practices are never identity. Bob’s bisexuality must be identity, while his sadomasochism must not be identity.

Meanwhile, people at the office and in the disability community may harass and belittle Bob for his sadomasochism, while claiming that their behavior is okay because being into BDSM ”isn’t a real identity” anyway. When people defend Bob, they might accept this premise while trying to claim that he should be protected because he’s bisexual. At the same time, Bob may not be able to attend events for LGBT or BDSM because these events are held in buildings which are not accessible with a wheelchair.

All these problems can be dismissed by dancing around with the categorizations, always refusing to see the intersectionality and the midclusion. As they thus keep excusing prejudice, bigotry and discrimination against Bob, they can always top it off by affirming that Bob is a white man and therefore by definition privileged and therefore by definition a person who cannot be oppressed or whatever.

There are many people like Bob out there, in all kinds of categorizations. Midclusion is common.

In conclusion, the struggle for human dignity and human rights need to be universal rather than based on categories of people. When we base it on categories, there will always be people who falls between the cracks. Eventually, anyone & everyone might fall between the cracks. Every person is excluded from the social norm in some way and to some extent. While we need to highlight categories which are especially targeted for categorism, this must be a part of the universal struggle rather than being the main thing in itself.

There are eight planets in the social system. They used to be nine. But in 2006, one of them ceased to be a planet. So now there’s only eight planets left. To truly understand what happened, we must understand the difference between physical reality and social reality. This case of the missing planet also happens to be a perfect example for explaining the difference between these layers of reality.

You see, humanity has had a lot of impact on planet Earth. We have built cities, roads and canals all over the place. Rearranged the biosphere and changed the climate. Our physical constructions, such as buildings, are also social constructions in many ways, being products of civilization. Thus, physical reality and social reality are intertwined.

While our impact on Earth has been great, we have made only minimal impact on The Moon and on the planet Mars. A flag here, a robot there. Some footprints and tracks. So far, we have had no impact at all on any other planet or similar. Not in this solar system, and not beyond the solar system either.

Thus, the fact that Pluto used to be a planet but isn’t a planet any more… it has nothing to do with humans affecting Pluto itself. It is not Pluto that has changed, only our perception of it. The thing is this: Those things we call “planets” are not socially constructed. Not only are they a part of physical reality, but they are a part that is too far out of our reach to interact with social reality at all. However, the very concept of “planet” is a social construction. All concepts are socially constructed. They are more or less arbitrary, and they are changing over time.

When astronomers made the distinction between planets and stars, only a few planets were known. These were the largest and closest planets, because these were the ones easiest for us to observe. Pluto was the by far smallest of the planets. Later on, asteroids were discovered, but Pluto was too big to be considered an asteroid. So it remained a planet. But then it was discovered that asteroids like Ceres was actually on the same kind of size as Pluto. A choice had to be made. A choice between constantly adding new planets to our vision of the solar system, while having a hard time drawing the line between planet and asteroid. Therefore, in 2006, a new category was created: Dwarf-planets! Pluto, Ceres and three others were exiled to this category. Thus the number of planets in the solar system was reduced to eight.

When this kind of choice is made, it is not a matter of right versus wrong. Pluto is not a planet. This is true by definition, because Pluto does not fit our definition of what a planet is. Pluto used to be a planet, and this was also true by definition. Because Pluto did fit the definition we used to have of what a planet is. The question is not whether the definitions are right or wrong, but to what extent they are reasonable.

Astronomers didn’t discover that Pluto is not a planet, they decided it. But they did make this decision based on the discoveries they made, and this decision was a very reasonable decision to make.

Back in 2006, one of my friends took the decision very badly. It brought her to despair, crying because Pluto wasn’t a planet anymore. Not that she cared about Pluto, her problem was that the universe didn’t make sense to her anymore. If we can’t even trust that the number of planets in our very solar system is correct, what can we trust? She didn’t understand that there was never a truth to trust or distrust. It wasn’t the planets that had changed. Only our conceptualization of them.

Categories and other concepts do not exist in physical reality. They are social constructs: They are things that we human beings make up as we go along. We create and reinforce our categories individually in internal realities, as well collectively in social realities. If we fail to understand that concepts exist only in our minds and in our cultures, we will not be able to understand ourselves and each other. Furthermore, we won’t be able to understand physical reality either.

The universe is vast, and it exists independently of us. It is not socially constructed. Our understanding of this universe, however, is always socially constructed. How tempting it is to believe that our minds and culture shapes the universe around us. To believe that is the universe that is a small part of us, rather than we who are a small part of the universe.

The truth, however is that human perceptions of reality are always limited and subjective. They can be better or worse, especially when it comes to understanding the universe as well as understanding ourselves and each other. While constructs are ultimately arbitrary, they are NOT all equally valid. Some constructs promotes prejudices or misperceptions, while others promote more valid understanding. What we need to do is to always strive towards better perspectives and more reasonable concepts. Not delude ourselves into thinking that our current perspectives and concepts hold ultimate truth.

There are two videos I would like you to watch. Especially the first one. It is a brilliant summary of certain traditional ideals of patriotism, faith and masculinity. See this chorus of brave and faithful men singing their hearts out about how they will fight for their land, their families, their religion and their nation, tribe, empire or ethnic group.

Rid yourself of the narrative structure where one side is the heroic protagonists and the other is the villainous antagonists. Realize instead that all of these men are completely honest. That they all mean well and try their best to be good, in their limited understanding of what goodness means.

The other video partially touches on the same core issue, and highlights the core issue: The delusion that truth and morality revolves around one’s own group. In this case ethnic and religious group, but the same principle exemplified in this video applies to ANY categorization of people.

The basic truth that each of us need to understand is this: “The world does not revolve around me or any particular group of people I identify with. My point of view is subjective, our common point of view is also subjective, and other people are people too. What matters is not whether one is religious or not, but HOW one relates to ones beliefs – whether these beliefs are religious, political and/or otherwise.

There are three layers of reality: Physical, internal and social.

The physical world exists independently of us humans. The internal realities ARE humans, each of us having our own subjective realities where the subjective experience is the objective truth: However connected or disconnected in relation to physical reality, it is objectively true that we do experience it. Social realities exist between humans. We need to learn to coexist in peace. To let our social realities mesh and mingle peacefully, rather than invade each other by force. While we need to recognize that all points of view have the same inherent value, we also need to recognize that there are facts and universal truths out there. Such as the fact that other human beings are just as human as you are, and that any system of morality that fails to empathize with them is a deeply flawed system. When people agree that morality is about providing for one’s own ethnic or religious or blood-line group at other people’s expense, they merely agree to all kill each other. Such a position is inherently destructive on a level that a civilization capable of mass destruction cannot afford to have. We, as a species, need to grow up. For this, we need universal human rights.